Youth must take over management and development of country: Manmohan

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said India needs young people to take over the management and development of the country.

He said this while releasing a coffee table book on his contributions towards the development of Assam during his tenure as a Rajya Sabha member representing the state since 1991.

The coffee table book was brought out by the Hiteswar Saikia Foundation, which is now being run by the former chief minister's son.

A number of senior Congress leaders, including Kumari Selja, Debabrata Saikia and Sushmita Dev were present during the occasion.

"India needs young people like Debabrata to lead the country in years to come, the youth must take over the management and development of our country," he said.

Singh said he was grateful to the Hiteswar Saikia Foundation for having thought of documenting his small contribution to the reconstruction and development of Assam.

"It is not for me to comment on the quality of the book, but I must compliment Manjit Kumar for having done the first rate job for documenting all the events associated with my innings in the development of Assam from 1991 onward. I must compliment him for the detailed analysis, documentation that is the hallmark of this coffee table book," he said.

Singh lauded former CM Hiteswar Saikia for having given him an opportunity to represent the state in Rajya Sabha.

"They took charge of me at a time when no other state was willing to offer me a seat in Parliament. This is therefore an honour that they have done to me, which I would never be able to forget," he said.

"In a situation like this, I have become somewhat emotional, because my thought goes back to the days in 1991 when Hiteswar Saikia ji took charge for me in finding a seat for me in Assam. He not only took me to Assam, guided me about the complicacies and intricacies of managing the country's right in Assam, but he and Shrimati Saikia ji adopted me as a tenant in their own house so that I became in a true sense of the term as a citizen of Assam.

"Saikia ji was a great statesman and a self-sacrificing statesman that he did so much for the development and the construction of Assam after ravages of the 1980s. In some day history will record," he said.

He said he would compliment Manjit Kumar for having done a very fine job of documenting all the events associated with his MPLADs fund.

"It was for me a voice of discovery, caring to various thoughts of Assam, I learnt a great deal about the complication of having economy and polity of Assam and north-east of India. That knowledge has helped me a lot in dealing with the complication and complexity of Northeast when I became the prime minister," Singh said.